Friday, April 8, 2005

Jack made contact with the other business broker he met recently, and we met in his office this afternoon. Their office is located in a tall building downtown, and the walls of the room we met in looked like a "Who's Who" of the local business world.

We met with a man named Steve today, and a simple way to describe Steve is that he reminds me of Mitt Romney in many ways. Steve outlined a few ways he thought they could help us. First, they could consult with us on growing our business. Second, they could provide a valuation of our company. Third, they could act as a business broker, the same as Marty, and try to help us sell our company.

Interestingly, with the numbers Jack gave him in previous phone conversations, and in our discussions today, he casually mentioned that our company might be worth $2M, but probably not $3M.

Surprisingly, the consulting agreement strikes me as the most interesting option right now. My only interest in staying with the company is if we can grow it, and I'm open to some outside advice here. I talked to Jack about this after the meeting, but he's not interested in it, he seems to think we're doing okay just as we are.

This opened the doors to a little bit of a discussion with Jack about my frustrations in not being able to grow the company, but again, it seemed like Jack wasn't able to focus for very long, and I dropped the discussion. As we drove, I wondered when the last time was when we had a truly meaningful business discussion. After a long silence, I asked how his wife was doing on some personal things she was pursuing, and he said "fine."